Football, not football

Before heading out to a bar to catch the US vs Trinidad world cup qualifier, my friend Sean and I played some FIFA 2005 on his old Xbox. I had a blast playing the game, but at first I was frustrated by my team's lack of control over the ball and their inconsistent passing. Then I watched the match tonight, and realized that the video game was a fairly accurate recreation of real life football. Sometimes players lose control of the ball, sometimes they make a bad pass, and more often than not they miss the goal completely when attempting a scoring shot. All of these things happen in FIFA 2005 and in the context of it being a sports game, these "mishaps" are right to be included in the gameplay. From a professional video game player's perspective who doesn't know much about football these little foibles seem more like unresponsive controls and simple minded AI non-player characters. This leads me to the conclusion that simulators, which most sports video games fall under, lean more towards realism than fun, which might explain why they have such a limited audience. One thing is for sure, I'm going to get better until I beat Sean at his own game.